Best Intentions

Ain’t that life? Plans that come to naught….. Things have been rough the last few months, and I sit here today “one day closer to death”, realizing that all I had intended to do has slipped through my fingers.

The month of May, we were supposed to have this month off of work in general, no clients, we were going to just keep the horses healthy and I was going to get into getting to all my bible studies, get to Kingdom Hall building, catch up my pioneering, and become human again.

Cosmic irony though, just when you get a supposed chance to figure out your life, everything and I mean EVERYTHING gets in the way!

Perhaps it’s got to do with my whole system figuring out that if I have a break its time to collapse like a puppet who’s strings are cut with nothing to hold me up.

We officially closed in May, I was exhausted from all the stresses built of up from the preceding months, the break ins and sick horses. The first of May was a godsend; literally, it was the annual pioneer meeting. It gave me a boost of emotional and spiritual strength, built up my morale to stand against this world.

But I am weak.

May brought on more break ins, our hiring a daily security guard and getting two new dogs. The uneasiness in the gut, the anger and irritation built up to the point of nightmares.

At the same time came on the worst tick plague we have ever had in the past twenty years of having horses. We’ve thrown everything we can at it and in the past two days finally given in to giving the horses all injections (injections that last time gave them abscesses of note) that should get rid of the ticks. Because despite spraying and powdering them, and picking the ticks off, there have just been too many! The ticks have clustered (mostly due to the severe drought) on the horses in nests of millions. We can can care for the herd, all of them being healthy, and put them out to the paddock and on the next day bring them in with 3 or 4 horses having gaping wounds from the ticks causing sores and then the flies laying eggs and hatching maggots in the sores.

We’ve spent most of the month daily caring for sick horses and trying to prevent more from getting sick.

At its worst, it’s gotten to ten sick horses at a time, picking maggots out of ankles, ears and even under their tails. We’ve done all we could, we’ve tried every method now, and if the injections don’t work, well we don’t know what next to do.

Between these two major problems, when the work of the day is finished, I am exhausted – mentally, emotionally and physically. My whole family is. You go to bed at night, but who can sleep when you’ve had the smell of rotting flesh in your nose all day? When every time you close your eyes, all you see are wriggling maggots? When you finally drift off to sleep, your dreams are riddled with nightmares of chasing people, or being chased?

Waking up in the morning becomes increasingly hard, like you haven’t slept at all.

Field ministry and Kingdom Hall building, although they are your biggest desire go out the window, because how can you justify going off to do something you love while leaving your parents alone to deal with fall out at home? You are so exhausted that by the time it’s time for the meetings, you can only just get to the meeting, asking to go on field service afterwards is just too much for your exhausted body.

Then the guilt, frustration, stresses of it all catches up to the body, and I’ve just hit a low. Depression ensues, and physical energy is gone, my CFS has flared up again and my body aches all day long every day. My emotions are haywire, and I’m tired, so so tired. I’ve spent the past week nearly bed ridden.

Well, my plans have come to naught. But, I’m not done fighting yet. I will be a good pioneer, eventually. As a wise and wonderful friend of mine once said “if pioneering was easy, everyone would do it.” So, I have to listen to my body, I will take a little breather, but I’ll stand up again.

You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.